


press b to run press f to pay respects

by taiyakeo



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: HQ Rarepair Bang 2020, M/M, also i may have projected on shibayama a little, bless nash, bokoblins were harmed in the writing of this fic, by that I mean a lot, especially about the old man hatred, good boys playing a good game, i got paired with nash for this one!, it's like the turning point, like the goose in ugg, literally just shibaken playing botw, references to other games, shibayama just becomes more and more wild, where he discovers he can do Bad Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23522302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taiyakeo/pseuds/taiyakeo
Summary: Kenma teaches Shibayama, who's never had a console in his life, how to play Breath of the Wild and witnesses in mild horror as Shibayama grows increasingly bastardous.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Shibayama Yuuki
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31
Collections: HQ Rarepair Bang 2020





	press b to run press f to pay respects

**Author's Note:**

> thank you nash for the beautiful [art!!!!](https://www.instagram.com/p/B-qhTj9FQ9C/) you can find nash on instagram as [woosh_im_noosh](https://www.instagram.com/woosh_im_noosh/)

It was beautiful. Vast fields splayed out before him; grass danced in the wind, twisting so delicately they looked like green feathers collected from the most vibrant of birds. Shibayama could see the sun up ahead, casting thin rays of golden like streaks of paint on the soft bed of plant life. There was a small makeshift hut (or at least it looked like it) off in the distance, and beyond that there was an unreasonably large derelict stone building that seemed to be crumbling like a cookie a child had left and forgotten in their milk. Smoke from a fireplace somewhere drifted like clouds languidly up into the sky, wisps of grey plucked gently from burning amber and tawny to swing aimlessly through the air. 

"I want to see what you do," Kenma said softly from behind him, leaning over his shoulder. "You can explore or you can head towards that fireplace. You see that--like, uh… That guy off in the distance? You can go towards him, or that building behind him." He pointed, and Shibayama pretended to see what he was pointing at.

Shibayama swivelled the joystick in his hands, fingers flinching over the buttons reflexively as the camera spun out of control. "I think I'll--ooh, hold on, I feel like I'm having a stroke." He laughed softly and slowly flicked the joystick. "I'm not good with controlling this." 

"Obviously." Kenma's eyes were flickering again over his movements in-game, and it made him nervous. He wasn't much good at games (he'd never held a console before that moment), so evidently Kenma wouldn't expect much from him, but he wondered if it was possible to disappoint Kenma even more than he already had. He was observing him so closely that he was terrified he'd mess up. 

"I'm going to--" 

"You know you don't need to go around that, right? You can just climb, like earlier."

Shibayama felt stupid. "Oh. I guess so." He pressed B and let Link clamber up the surface of a cliff, watching the small green circle tick down. Kenma had told him about stamina (because he wasn't so cruel as to leave him completely helpless) but it was a different thing from actually experiencing it. 

"Mm, like that. Make sure you don't run out." 

"What happens if I don't--What happens if it runs out?" 

"Then you fall and die. So don't." 

Shibayama nibbled at the inside of his cheek and saved the game. Just in case. Kenma snorted. 

When he got up to the top, he huffed a sigh, relieved, and began to wander around a little clumsily. There was nothing for now, and he had the feeling that something much worse was coming soon. 

Shibayama struggled with the controls for a little before managing to save again. Kenma offered no help, only staring at him in silence, observing his anguish. 

He picked up apples from trees and an axe from a crate he smashed clumsily ("Hey, I'm like Edelgard now!") before heading towards the large stone building. It wasn't so difficult, he thought, just gathering mushrooms and fruit for him to eat later. He splashed through puddles and found his way slowly to the crumbling building. This was pretty, half-eaten by moss, standing tall amongst the rest of the flat land. 

"Shibayama," Kenma suddenly said, shaking him with more force than Shibayama had thought was possible coming from him. "Shibayama. Shibayama Shibayama Shibayama--Look! Shit, goddamn it, turn to your left--" 

Shibayama moved the camera, not even taking notice of Kenma's cussing; Link stumbled backwards. "Oh, oh my God, oh no, what is that?" His finger flinched over the Y button, spamming it. 

There was a red… pig, something, coming towards Link, and he smashed it in the head frantically as Kenma murmured advice he didn't hear over his own screaming. It wasn't as if he would have been able to follow it even if he'd heard anyway, because he was so frantic and so bad at playing games, so perhaps it was for the best that his sole strategy was to smash the attack button as many times as he could in as little time as possible with zero technique at all.

"Oh my God," he breathed as the beast finally wasted away. His chest was heaving, he was sweating… What the hell? Why was that thing there in the middle of such a pleasant world? He'd just wanted to see the ruins. 

"I told you to be careful," Kenma said unhelpfully. "I can't believe you didn't hear the boss music." 

"I was looking at the pretty statue! I didn't even hear it, I can't believe I didn't see it, that thing was terrifying. Why didn't you tell me those things were here?"

Kenma shook his head, sighing, and Shibayama thought fleetingly that he'd never seen Kenma so worked up before. Even if it was because of his stupidity in relation to games, he was happy that he'd gotten to see a new side of him.

-  
Shibayama went through a little more of the game, spending most of his time snubbing the old man he'd met, even stealing from his house in revenge for some imagined slight, and when it came to night he began to search for a place to sleep.

Shibayama moved Link towards the side.

"You can sleep by the fireplace," Kenma said. "Just skip to morning." 

"I don't want to be by the old man. He cheated me." Shibayama made a face and made Link swing at the 'stinky man'. Kenma made a mental note to make Shibayama take a break sometime soon before he became increasingly, irreversibly bastardous. 

"Then go up on a hill or something. Die, I guess." 

Shibayama clambered clumsily up a cliff, struggling his way to the top, slipping every once in a while. Kenma was silent again, resting his head on Shibayama's shoulder. 

"You know, the sunrises in this game are pretty," Kenma murmured, way too close to Shibayama's ear, and he pretended he wasn't ticklish, because then Kenma would have moved, and he didn't want that. "You should wait and watch for one."

Shibayama's heart was pounding again, but not because of some goblin anymore. 

They sat together and waited until it was time (which took an awful amount of time for Shibayama, and he had to kill a few bat-like creatures that flew at him), and then they watched the ball of flame crest the hill, splattering the grass with amber and filling the whole expanse below with an reddish-yellow, almost as though somebody had blown colour gently across the land with its breath. The clouds were drifting slowly across the sky, silver light sparking in their wake. Shibayama couldn't help but think that it was so human; it felt like somebody was there, gently moulding the landscape and waking the land as it shook off the blankets of night. 

"Wow," he said, feeling something wake in himself as Kenma hummed against his shoulder and bump his forehead gently against his ear. "That's--"

"Amazing." Kenma finished the sentence for him, almost completely deadpan other than the little hint of smugness in his voice. Like he was happy that he'd been able to share something small with Shibayama. 

\--

_Link,_ a voice said, quite suddenly. _Head for the point marked out on your Shieka slate._

"Why can you hear Zelda? Is she magical? Are you Zelda, secretly?'

"Conspiracy theory," Kenma deadpanned. "You're a genius." 

"Link," said Shibayama, mimicking Zelda's soft voice. "You moron. You absolute moron." He spammed the buttons, forcing Link to squat and stand over and over again. "Link, what are you doing? You fool. Do you have any idea how much pain I'm in? Link!"

Kenma shook his head. "Stop doing that. You're so slow. You're just wasting time." 

"But--" Shibayama tilted his head, arguing despite his mind telling him to shut up and keep playing. "It's no fun playing if you don't wander, right? I'm sure the designers put a lot of effort into their game, and I don't know… Like, what's the point in playing if you don't, hypothetically, like, stop and smell the roses?"

"You mean you just want to goof off?"

"I'm saying sometimes the point in games is to goof off." He held Kenma's even gaze for a moment before he couldn't stand it and blinked, almost about to apologise and tell him to forget it when he shrugged.

"I guess you're right," Kenma said, angling his chin higher towards the screen. He paused and took on Zelda's accent. "Link, you moron. Keep walking." 

Shibayama walked him into a river. 

\--

Shibayama began to look around. "I want to cook things. You said I can, right?"

"Yeah. Dimitri." 

"What?" He was distracted, fiddling once again with the controls, having forgotten once again how to use them. He just pressed everything again and again until he found the right thing.

"Boar."

"There are animals here? Are there, uh.. Cats? Can I pet them?" 

"No cats. Only boars, birds, fish and foxes. Kill and eat them." 

Shibayama's face was horrified. "I don't want to kill and eat anything!"

"Are those bees?" Shibayama leaned closer to the screen. "That's--that's honeycomb, right?" 

"yeah. you get food if you smack it." Kenma reached over Shibayama's arm to press the controller.

He hit Y.

"Oh--Oh, Kenma-san, why'd you do that?" Shibayama's voice was shrill as he screamed, spamming Y. "Oh my God, there's--No! Bees! I don't want to hurt them! Kenma-san!" 

Kenma sighed and took the controller from Shibayama's hands, maneuvering Link to intensely smack at the bees. "You're so helpless. You're terrible at this." 

He covered his eyes, hearing Link's noises of effort as he swung at the bees. "Kenma-san… Are you done yet?"

Kenma sighed and handed him back the controller, half-chucking it at him. "Yes. I'm done. You're welcome for making sure you don't die."

"Sorry, Kenma-san." He laughed and wandered back to his wok, tossing the apples in with the honeycomb like Kenma instructed him to. "I really am terrible at games, huh?"

Kenma smiled a little, and they both tried to forget how their hands had brushed when Kenma reached over to grab the controller.  
\--

It wasn't long before Shibayama spotted a stork-looking bird off in the distance, exclaiming in surprise at the presence of an actual animal that wasn't a weird blue blob trying to kill him, a red pig thing trying to kill him, or a blue pig thing trying to kill him. 

"Kill it," said Kenma. "Kill it. Kill it for its meat." 

"Meat! Meat, meat meat meat--" 

Somewhere along in the chant, Kenma joined him, and they were both repeating "meat" as though they'd been hypnotised, and as Shibayama drew back Link's bow and fired a shot, they both realised that he'd used a flame arrow. 

"Pre-cooked meat!" Shibayama cried in glee at the same moment that Kenma, in total dismay, half-screamed (a Kenma scream was slightly above normal speaking volume, but very loud for him) "The meat will burn!" 

"Burn?" Shibayama panicked, holding B.

"Don't catch fire," Kenma said, breathless, as Link ran by the meat. "Quick. Before it burns!" He'd grabbed Shibayama and was shaking him by the shoulders, grip painful. 

"Meeeaaaaaaat," breathed Shibayama as soon as he was able to pick it up. He put the controller on his lap and raised his arms in victory, laughing at Kenma's judgemental face. 

"Meat." Kenma snorted softly. "I don't know why you're celebrating. It's not that hard to get meat."

"Then why'd you freak out with me?"

"Only because you're so horrible at this," Kenma deadpanned. "So I was worried you'd fail even a simple task like that. It gets me very edgy seeing you being so bad at gaming." 

Shibayama's jaw fell open and he feigned hurt, bringing his hand to his chest. "I'm not _that_ bad, surely."

He met Kenma's gaze uneasily. 

"Okay, maybe kind of bad."

Kenma kept looking at him.

"...Okay, very bad." 

"Just eat your meat," Kenma sighed. "Go to a wok and cook it."

Shibayama made Link run over to a wok. He opened his inventory, toggling with some difficulty to the meat and--

Ate it. 

He gasped, and watched Kenma's jaw fall open.

"You didn't even… Get the fire going…"

"I can't believe you just watched me do that," Shibayama murmured, putting his head in his hands. "I… Can't believe that I just did that. I'm sorry you had to see that." 

"I'm sorry for my eyes, too. Whatever. You'll get more meat. There's more than one bird in this entire world, you know."

He ruffled Shibayama's hair briefly, and Shibayama didn't feel the loss of the meat as deeply anymore. 

\--

They took a break about five hours in, having totally forgotten that water and food were a thing in the midst of playing until Shibayama was totally parched. Truth be told, he thought that Kenma could have continued gaming for the next four days straight, only getting up to retrieve sustenance when he absolutely had to. 

"You know," said Kenma between gulps of water. "I think you'll get better at this."

"Really? I've got no sense for gaming, though. It's just funny to fail." 

Kenma sighed. "I didn't say you'd get good at it. I only said I thought you'd improve. You're not set on beating it like I am."

"You've beaten it already, though, haven't you, Kenma-san?" 

Kenma nodded, and Shibayama felt awe for him. 

He was still reeling from being in Kenma's kitchen, let alone his house, and the thought of being alone with him for the next few hours were enough to make him scream. He genuinely, really, was going to scream, and he was glad that he failed enough to have an excuse to scream rather than doing it randomly out of nowhere.

Then Kenma was calling him back into his room, and he ran back giddier than ever.  
\--

They reached the old man's backstory only much later, and Shibayama only realised that the old man was dead on the path that the old man had told him to follow.

"No… No shit," Kenma said, disbelieving, when Shibayama gasped out his newfound 'discovery'. "Were you not listening?"

"Uh… Not really." He giggled, watching Kenma shake his head. "It's hard to pay attention to such a long story. I just kind of drifted. Watching his beard wobble, you know…"

"I can't believe how disrespectful you are to him. He dies and he gets this in return? I'd be rolling in my grave."

"He doesn't deserve a grave," Shibayama mumbled, and Kenma's jaw dropped. 

"Didn't expect that from you." 

"Well, he doesn't." He wrinkled his nose and made Link swing his axe. "I want to chop off his head." 

"What is it with you and this old man? What did he do to you? Which of your family members did he kill?" 

"My mother," Shibayama said, totally deadpan.

"I saw her just yesterday." 

"He did it this morning. Tragic, right?" 

Shibayama had to bite his lip hard to keep from laughing, but when he saw Kenma doing the same he just let loose and began to laugh so hard he choked. Kenma smacked him on the back, and before long they were both on the ground giggling. 

"The old man is a war criminal," Shibayama said through his laughter, which set them off again.

"I can't believe he's done this." 

Shibayama picked the controller up again, idly walking Link through the forest and forcing him to climb a hill to evade a camp of goblins. Kenma was silent, leaning forward, eyes wide, watching Link as he walked through the terrain, giving Shibayama instructions every now and then or just grabbing the controller himself to stop Shibayama from walking Link straight into a body of water. 

"The noises he makes are disturbing," Shibayama murmured.

"And you wouldn't be huffing if you ran as far as you made him run?"

"Link isn't human."

Kenma paused. "...Yes, he is? Look at him. He's very much human."

"But his ears…?"

"He's human," Kenma said, firmly, and that was the end of it. 

It wasn't long before they reached a village, and Shibayama began to throw roosters. Kenma watched in horror, not even bothering to stop him, as he aimed one just shy of a fire.

"Consider… Not doing that, perhaps? Go talk to Impa." 

"But this is fun," Shibayama said, narrowing his eyes and throwing a rooster right at a villager. "Aha! Got him."

"You're being mean to the roosters." 

Shibayama looked briefly dismayed. "Ah, you're right. I'm sorry, roosters." He gently put down (read: violently threw over a fence) the rooster he had been preparing to throw at another poor, unsuspecting villager child and wandered over to Impa's house, finding the little child he had promised he would play hide-and-seek with (and had completely forgotten about) in the process. 

He spent the rest of his time wandering around the village, even attempting to steal some pumpkins, and he watched Kenma slowly begin to regret ever having introduced him to the game.

"You know you can't do this in real life, yes?" His voice was soft, and he sounded more like he was whispering Shibayama secrets lazily rather than reminding him that theft was a crime and he was not allowed to steal things. 

"I don't even know anyone who grows pumpkins I could take, even if I--hypothetically, completely hypothetically--wanted to take any. Like, we're in the middle of Tokyo. Who's growing pumpkins?" He laughed.

"Gotten mouthy, haven't you?" Kenma squeezed his cheek. 

"I guess I have," he said, a little bit horrified, and a little bit giddy from the touch. 

Kenma hummed. "Well, I guess you're right. But don't steal anything."

"Don't be like Link. He's a bad role model. Got it." 

"You are Link, though…"

He shrugged and let Kenma ruffle his hair again, smiling. 

"I'm kinda tired," Shibayama laughed, and Kenma made a face, patting his own shoulder. "Huh?" 

"Lean on me," Kenma said, voice suddenly not so even. He looked--embarrassed? "You can just--You know. Go to sleep. I'll keep playing till the next village for you."

Shibayama stared for a moment. Then he nodded and leaned gingerly on Kenma, heart pounding when he shifted his arm around Shibayama, slinging it casually around his shoulders (as if it was something to be casual about) and squeezed his arm. 

"Uh--Goodnight, Kenma-san." 

"Thanks for playing with me." 

"Thanks for letting me play." 

They laughed, and Shibayama couldn't stop smiling even when he fell asleep.


End file.
